Christmas Games – What Do You And Your Family Do?

Christmas day at our house, is full of laughter (sometimes an argument, but every family has at least one, don’t they!?).
We have 3 rules:

• ‘No TV’ – Not even for The Queen’s Speech
• ‘No phones’
• Everybody has to make a game and bring it with them – No shop bought games.

Once the presents have been opened and Christmas dinner has been eaten – our Christmas games begin.
Paper, pens and pencils are the only equipment needed – so no need to rush out for batteries!
Here are some ideas of the games we play:

• Drawing games – split the room into teams. We take it in turns to draw something – a famous landmark, celebrity, TV programme or an everyday item. It doesn’t matter if you can’t draw, it’s just funny people trying to guess what the picture is.
• ‘Guess the sweet/chocolate’ – We give a cryptic clue about a chocolate brand and they have to guess the Chocolate. Example: This is a posh Road – answer Quality Street or Clever Sweets – answer Smarties. The list is endless.
• Someone recites the alphabet – we shout ‘stop’ to give us the letter for that round. This person gives us a theme, for example ‘name anything at an airport’. The teams go into a frenzy (give them a time limit, say 30 seconds) writing down what is at the airport beginning with that letter.
• The Humming game – No equipment needed – except your voice! Everyone has a turn, just hum a tune and get others to name it.
• Consequences – One person has piece of paper and pen, thinks of a subject and writes something down about it, they pass to the next person, they have to write something that follows on and then fold the paper over so only the last line is visible. They pass it round repeating this and so on. At the end of the round when the last person has written their line, it is read out and always has people laughing, as it makes no sense at all!

These games go well into the evening, the perfect accompaniment to a few drinks and nibbles.
It just goes to show that sometimes a pen & paper, along with a bit of imagination is all you need for a fun family Christmas get together NOT EXPENSIVE GAMES/GADGETS.